Christmas Eve Recipe

Every Christmas Eve, we have clam chowder for dinner. This year was the first time that I had ever made it, and my dad called it a "sacred undertaking" and warned me not to mess it up. :) I thought I would share this recipe with you all. Merry Christmas!

Bratten's Clam Chowder

1 cup onions, finely chopped

1 cup celery, diced

2 cups potatoes, diced

3/4 cup butter

3/4 flour

1 quart half and half

1 1/2 tsp salt

pepper

2 T red wine vinegar (optional)

Drain juice from clams and pour over vegetables in saucepan. Add enough water to barely cover vegetables. In another pan melt butter, add flour and cream, salt and pepper. Cook and stir until smooth and thick. Add undrained vegetables, clams, and vinegar. Heat through.

Christmas "Letter" 4.0

Dear Family, Friends, and Random Strangers in the Great Abyss of the Interwebs,

Well, another year has passed by! I think the theme this year has been change, and constancy. Which, I know, are two completely different things. But we'll get to that later.

First, I want to mention something that has been on my mind a lot the past few days. This is my first year, in five years, that I have not had to go through finals to get to Christmas. As all of my friends have been stressing and counting down on Facebook, I have been hit with this strange sense of nostalgia. Not that I want to have to take three-hour tests, and study my butt off in between, but there is something about having to take finals to get to Christmas which made Christmas Christmas, ya know? I don't quite feel like it's Christmas as I just go back to work everyday same as any other month. I think it was the semester ending, and finals starting that just let me know Christmas was right around the corner. I also miss ABCFamily's 25 Days 'Til Christmas. I love cheesy made for TV movies, as well as the Harry Potter marathon, and old Christmas favorites.

Now to this past year. It has almost been a year since I graduated from BYU and moved into my parents' basement (I know, such a stereotypical thing to do). I started off the year with a big change in my life--my first internship! This meant working 40 hours a week, in an office building, with my own office. Working at the New Era was such an amazing experience. And now that my articles have started being published, it is like the gift that keeps on giving! After four months there, another change came in my life. After three weeks of waiting, I was offered an internship at Deseret Book! While I only worked part time here, I had a great time. I was reading books, and editing, and learning, and source checking. After 16 weeks that affirmed to me that editing was really what I want to do with my life, I left there and started at my third internship at the Joseph Smith Papers Project.

I'm back to working full time, and really loving it. I like the people I work with and the things I get to do (though they do get tedious sometimes, but what job doesn't?). The great thing about all these experiences is that they built upon each other--each one prepared me for the next. When I took the editing test at Deseret Book, I just got this peaceful feeling that God knows what I need and if I trust in Him, everything will work out. And it has! It is so amazing!

Another wonderful change this year was that my brother got home from his mission in the Dominican Republic! It's so good to have our family all in one country again!

I also took an acting class! That was very interesting, and good for me to do--got me out of my little shell for a little bit.

So, those are all the changes that have occurred in my life this year, so what about the constancy? Well, though I have changed jobs every four months, I have remained in my parents' basement. That's a constant, as is their love and concern for me. God has remained constant, though I have changed (for the better) in regards to Him. Though I am serving in a different capacity at church, the gospel has forever remained constant, and will ever remain constant. It may not seem like much constancy, but these are the things that are really important.

Also, I'm still single. That has been very constant these past few years!

What am I looking forward to this coming year? I'll continue at JSPP until April-ish, and after that . . . who knows? Hopefully I'll get a "real" job, move out of my parents' house, and start another new chapter in my life. It'll be an adventure, I'll tell you that!

Happy Christmas!

Whitney

It's the Little Things

Today was a great day! And you know what made it so fantastic? The small things that happened today.

Small Thing #1: Getting European Chocolate

A coworker spent the last week in Rome (was I jealous? Oh, just a lot.) and just came back to work today. Besides being able to hear about wonderful Rome, she brought a Kinder Bueno bar for me and the rest of us! I LOVE Bueno bars!

Small Thing #2: Talking to Cute Little Kids

As I walked off the elevator on my way out the door to go home this afternoon, I saw two little red-headed boys (they looked like twins) standing on the other side of the security gates. As I beeped myself through, I saw them shaking their hands in the air. "We've got magic in our hands," one of them says to me. "Do you?" I reply. "What are you doing with the magic?" One little boy touches the metal of the security gates, "When we touch this, it opens!" The security guard had been playing with them by opening the gates when they touched them! They were so adorable, I just had to smile!

Small Thing #3: Reading the Same Book as Someone Else

While I wait for my second train to come (I have to transfer), I usually sit on a planter, reading and swinging my legs like a little girl. It's the start of me being able to block out the rest of the world and relax from the work day a little bit. I had pulled my hood over my head, my scarf over my nose, and sat hunched up against the cold and curled toward my book. I don't usually pay attention to others around me, just the trains as they go by so I don't miss mine. Today, a woman came up next to me and got a book out of her bag. Then, she leans forward and says, "I thought so! We're reading the same book!" I look up and she shows me her cover. Sure enough, it read The Hero and the Crown by Robin McKinley. "That doesn't happen often, does it? And it's an older book; my favorite!" Though I didn't say anything, just smiled, and we went back to reading our books, it was kind of like we had this little thing that connected us. It's nice to feel connected to other people. Sometimes.

Small Thing #4: Seeing Your Name in a Multinational Magazine

When I got home to an empty house (everyone else was at the temple), I walked in to find a big white envelope with my name on it from the LDS Church Magazines. Confused, I turn it over, run my finger under the flap and open it up. Inside was a magazine. I thought maybe it was the New Era, because of the three articles I had it in this month. But when I pulled it out, to my surprise it was the Liahona, the Church's multinational magazine. Still confused, but on my way to being excited, I opened up to the contents pages and look frantically for my name. And there it was: Whitney Hinckley!! Two of my articles had made it into the magazine! A magazine that is translated into tons of different languages and shipped all over the world! Full of excitement, I started hopping up and down and saying "Oh! Oh! Oh!" and turning around, looking for someone to share it with! But no one was home, so I raced downstairs, posted it on Facebook and then proceeded to put my energy to good use by have an impromptu dance party while making dinner. This dance party included songs like "Something That I Want" from Tangled, "Under the Sea" from The Little Mermaid, "Suddenly I See" by KT Tunstell, "Down" by Jay Sean, "Get Back" by Demi Lovato, "What Dreams are Made of" from The Lizzie Maguire Movie, and, when I needed some cooling down, "Holiday" by the Kinks. I let my hair down (literally, I took my hair out of the braid I had it in), and may or may not have down some hand banging, jumping up and down, and singing as loud as I can (there was no one else home, remember?). I went crazier than I have in a while and it felt good.

I am so grateful for the little things that make life so great!

Review: Time Traveling Adventures

So, it seems that time traveling is sort of the new thing in YA fiction, considering I have read at least three books about time traveling--each with varying degrees of success. Here are the three that I have read:

First up, Timeless by Alexandra Monir.

This novel was okay. It's about a girl who finds a diary from 1910 and is transported back in time to meet her ancestor and a mysterious boy that has been haunting her dreams her whole life. The writing was so-so, and the plot a little predictable. The thing that really ruined this novel for me, though, was that it was the beginning of a series (probably a trilogy, because that seems to be the "thing" now. ::Sigh::), and it ended like it was the beginning of a trilogy, meaning there was no ending. And what really bothered me was that it could have been one book. It was only 280 pages--little short for it's target audience--and with some editing and cutting, and then adding 100 more pages, it probably would have been a pretty good book. It's kind of fun and cute, but I don't recommend it.

(Can I just go on a little rant about series? I would rather have ONE good book than three so-so books. But it seems like everyone is writing series now! If you are going to write a series, please make it so the books stand alone! It's so frustrating when you end in the middle of the story. It is only after I get connected to the characters and get comfortable with the prose that I become okay with there being cliff-hanger endings. Harry Potter is a good example of this. The first few books completed the story line for that book, and once everyone started loving it, no one cared how Rowling wrote them. Rick Riordan is another good example. Because I like the way he writes, I don't care that I have to wait so long for his next book to come out. I'm comfortable with his universe, and the characters, and even though there is a larger story arch throughout his books, each individual story line completes within it's own book. It's like a TV show--there maybe be an arch, but each episode [usually] contains a full storyline. Anyway, back to the reviews . . . )

Second, The Time-traveling Fashionista by Bianca Turetsky

This book was cute. It's a little younger (main character is 12, I think, so probably for 10 to 13 year olds). What I loved about this novel was the pictures. The girl goes back to 1912 and there are some beautiful drawings (done by a real fashion designer) of Edwardian clothes. It was one of those cute little novels that you read when you need a break from your "thinking" books. This was also the beginning of a series, but it was a stand alone book.

Third, Ruby Red by Kerstin Gier.

I loved this novel! It was originally written in German and has just recently been translated into English. This one is about a girl, living in London, who has a gene that makes it so she spontaneously transports back in time, except everyone thought her cousin had inherited it instead of her. So well written and translated! This is also the beginning of a trilogy, but this is done right. The book is so good that you want to read the rest, not because you just want to see how it ends, but because you want to get taken on the journey to the end. Good characters, great story, good read. It's intriguing and I am excited to finish this trilogy.

Sunday Special: Turning a Blind Eye

I have severe myopia (near sightedness). Like, horrible. Fortunately, with corrective lenses, this is only something I usually only have to be aware of for a few seconds morning and night before and after taking my contacts out. I started wearing contacts when I was thirteen, and there have been a few times since then that I have had to go back to wearing my glasses for a week or two--usually because I have lost one of my contacts and I can't very well be going around with only one good eye.

I hate wearing my glasses. The last time I lost a contact, I realized just how much I hate wearing them all the time. My eyesight is so bad that I couldn't even but on my make-up without difficulty. I had to get so close to the mirror in order to see that not only did I go cross-eyed, but I couldn't get my eyeliner pencil at the correct angle because it's about 6 inches, and I was only giving it 2 inches between the mirror and my face.

What people don't realize is that not having my contacts or glasses in doesn't make me completely blind. I can still see things, they just happen to look . . . furrier than normal. People have no individual features, but the basic shape is still there. I can still make sense of most of what is going on around me. For example the "how many fingers" game. I may not be able to see your individual fingers, but I know the basic shape a hand makes when holding up two or five fingers. I guess you can say I know what it's like to not see things clearly (literally).

Sometimes I think that we take out our "spiritual" contacts when it comes to things in this world we live in. We thinking that not seeing something clearly will make it so we don't become affected by it. We use our self inflicted blindness as an excuse; "I just ignore it when people swear" "I fast forward through that part" "I skipped those pages".

I don't know about you, but I have come to learn that I am extremely affected by the things I subject myself to. The images I see, the words I hear, the things I read. And I used to make up excuses too--I used to take out my contacts and think that fast forwarding through a scene or trying to ignore bad language made it so it didn't wear on me. I would skim through scenes in books, because that way I wasn't really ingesting it. But the thing is . . . I was. It had a major affect on me in ways I wouldn't even have thought about.

It changed the way I viewed other people, the thoughts that came to my head. And I learned that once I saw something, it was filed away somewhere, waiting to pop up what I didn't want it. It changed the way I felt.

I'm not perfect. I still make mistakes and make excuses. Sometimes I find myself with my spiritual contacts out. But I think that once I learn to view the world through my spiritual lenses, not only am I going to be better able to see the good, but I'm going to better able avoid the bad. We live in a world that perverts sex, language, relationships, freedom, morality, and even religion. But we also live in a beautiful world with wonderful advances in technology. A world that is full of good people, and good things.

In Sunday school last Sunday, my teacher said something that has stuck with me. He said, "You can't stop the birds from flying, but you can keep them from nesting in your hair." So, I'm not saying that we should stick to the scriptures as our only form of literature, or only watch Disney cartoons, and listen to hymns. I love movies and music and books. I'm saying, seek out the good in the world, whatever that may be to you. Know your own limits; know what affects you, and stay away from it.

Stop looking at the world in a haze because you turn a blind eye to everything in it. Put on your corrective lenses and see things clearly! Life is better that way.

Taking the Bad with the Good

I like my job. I really do. I feel so blessed to be a part of such a wonderful project, and to associate with the people I do.

But sometimes, it drives me crazy!

This last week was kind of a difficult on at the Ol' JSPP. The entire week was working on one thing--checking the website. This is a completely repetitive task that involves little to no brain work. Basically, you are given a checklist, then you head on over to the JSP "ready" site and check links/images/pop-ups. In order to keep me from going utterly INSANE with the monotony, I had to resort to watching BBC period dramas* on YouTube. (I know, my life is so hard. I'm getting paid to watch some of my favorite movies.)

It wasn't until about Wednesday that things started to get really bad. Before that, my eyes would be exhausted from staring at a computer screen for 7 and 1/2 hours the whole day, and I'd have a bit of a headache, no big deal. Besides, I got a free donut on Tuesday. But on Wednesday, the ready site was down the entire morning, meaning we couldn't do any work on the site. When something is unpleasant, you just want to get it over with (besides the fact that I wanted to finish Northanger Abbey). Besides that, I don't like leaving things at work unfinished. I did have some other things to work on that morning and the site was up in the afternoon. The other interns, though, weren't there, which meant that the work was going pretty slow.

On Thursday the other interns were there, but other things had started popping up. The woman we were checking the site for wanted us to be done by Friday, something we thought was completely plausible. Then, another girl comes around with an assignment that she wanted done by Friday/Monday at the lasted. We finally agreed that we would have to take the second assignment home and work on it there (because we both had a few extra hours during the week we hadn't used). The website was touchy at best and the entire JSP staff was off at the ADE conference in the afternoon. We tried to get as much done as we could and then I headed home, carrying half of a 600 page manuscript with me to work on when I got home. By this time I was getting a bad case of the jitterbugs, so I played the piano to release some of that pent up energy until dinnertime.

Friday was by far the worst day of the week. Everyone was gone to the conference, except a select few. The website was again being "bipolar" as two of my coworkers independently called it. At one point it said it would be down until Tuesday!! Fortunately it came back up and didn't give us anymore trouble the rest of the day. Then, we were given another project and since the website woman was at the conference, we were told to abandon the website for a while and work on this one. This is what was probably the hardest this week: everyone wanting us to work on their project. Everything seemed to have the same deadline and there were a few "discussions" about which was the most important--print or website. As interns, we just have to try to do what we're told without getting everyone mad at us. The only highlight of my day was watching Doctor Who at lunch time, a Friday tradition with some people I met that work in different departments. I stayed late to try to get done what I could, but even with Bleak House, there was only so much I could stand, meaning that I had to leave without the website check being completed. I was so exhausted. I didn't even read on the train ride home; I just couldn't bring myself to use my eyes for anything.

Have you ever been so tired that when all these negative/sad thoughts start pushing forward and all these emotions come bubbling up, you just don't have the energy to keep them at bay? That's how I felt when I finally reached Daybreak and got in my car to drive home. Some song (okay, Adele's "Someone Like You") came on the radio, which prompted some thoughts about something that had happened early that week, which prompted some other thoughts, which prompted some emotions and I just couldn't keep them at bay. I found myself driving with tears running down my face, and the antsy feeling that comes from doing the same thing for about 30 hours that week. I finally turned the radio off and came home. I went downstairs to change out of my skirt and found myself crying again for absolutely no reason whatsoever.

Fortunately by the time I had gotten some food in me and was at a bookstore with my parents looking for the perfect book to buy with my mom's 25% discount, I was feeling much better.

I have been thinking about something lately, though. I think that I would rather take the hard times with the good, then just having the good all the time. Without the hard times I wouldn't be who I am (for better or for worse) and the good times wouldn't seem quite so sweet. Without having had an awful day on Friday, going to the bookstore probably wouldn't have been such the sweet relief it ended up being.

*For those wondering, I have so far watched North and South, Persuasion (2005), Northanger Abbey, Little Dorrit, and have almost made it through Bleak House.

Why I Love Google and Other Stories from My Job

I work in a library. That alone is awesome. A library is full of books, and this library in particular has really old books.

Plus, working in a library means that I am not the only nerd around, as being a nerd is a prerequisite to working in a library. No matter if you are in the library proper, or upstairs in the projects like I am.

I love the people I work with. The first day when I met them all I thought, "Wow. Historians are really awkward." Which, okay, they are, but they are also a lot of fun too. I have a great friendship with the other intern, and love our little chats that cover topics from Disney Channel stars to raising children (even though neither of us have any). It makes work more enjoyable.

Now, on to why I love Google. At work we have been spending a lot of time working on Geographical Directory entries to put up on the website. This means a lot of source checking--over and over again. These entries have gone through about 4 or 5 other people before I get them, and yet I still run into problems. Our lovely source inputers sometimes just put a source in without making a photocopy of the original source, or where it's from, or even who said it! Such was something that I ran into the other day. It was credited to Joseph Smith, but it obviously wasn't. I decided to take a chance and type a phrase into Google. The first three results popped up with the quote. I looked at two of them--both Wiki sites--Wiki sites are also wonderful because of their inclusion of sources!! I looked at the source for the quote, looked in the Library's catalog and discovered that we had it! I ordered it to be brought up to my desk, problem solved! Seriously, what did we ever do without the internet?

If we didn't have the internet, the Joseph Smith Papers Project would probably not be getting done. Instead of a 20 year project, it would probably take a life time. Tracking down the papers, and the sources, would take a long time. And my job would take even longer than it already does.

Anyway, that's why I love Google!